Okay, Georgia Tech fans, give me your best shot. I asked for it. You have shown me over the past two decades that you never forget two things: The Pythagorean Theorem and my editorial sideswipes at your institution.

Back in 2007, I had great sport with you when one of your promotional geniuses in the athletic department decided that to get people to attend the Tech-Virginia football game the experience would be enhanced with hip-hopper Big Boi flinging his bling at halftime.

I recall saying with much piety at the time that at the University of Georgia we didn’t need rap to entice our fans to watch our scholar-athletes engage in friendly competition with scholar-athletes from other educational institutions. We had the world’s greatest mascot, Uga, our esteemed marching band, the Georgia Redcoats, and a carload of hard-running tailbacks. I may have erred.

Fast-forward to the recent G-Day game. It seems we have a promotional genius of our own running amok in the UGA athletic department. It wasn’t enough that the game would be the much-anticipated debut of the nation’s No. 1 quarterback prospect, Jacob Eason, of Washington state. Nor did it seem to matter that local-boy-made-good, Kirby Smart, a former star defensive back at UGA before becoming a key member of the staff of University of Alabama head coach Nick Saban was making his first appearance as the Bulldog’s head ball coach.

Nope, that wouldn’t draw a crowd. We needed a rapper. So, the geniuses in UGA’s athletic department decided to hire Ludacris and to pay him the ludicrous sum of $65,000 to perform for 15 minutes before the game. That works out to $4,333.33 per minute. Only the late Ray Charles Robinson, of Albany, Georgia, was worth that kind of money and only if he sang, “Georgia on my Mind.”

In addition to the fee, Ludacris had a few other demands, courtesy of what we in showbiz call a hospitality rider. Kudos to the Macon Telegraph for getting their hands on the information through an Open Records request. We won’t be so lucky in the future. The Legislature passed and Gov. Deal has signed into law a measure that takes effect on July 1 and will require 90 days before athletic department information can be made public. Now, we know why.

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